Levitation for Beginners: 'a deliciously unsettling read’ Clare Chambers, bestselling author of Small Pleasures

In 1972, Deborah is living a ten-year-old life, but new girl Sarah-Jayne breezes into school with gossip and speculation. Sonny, an eighteen-year-old brickie, starts an unlikely friendship with Deborah's mother. Deborah fears what Sarah-Jayne will make of her mum, so she changes tactics and keeps her friends close and her enemy closer. She is invited to Sarah-Jayne's house, where she meets her charming family and encounters Max, Sarah-Jayne's sister's fiance.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 04 April 2024
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

A captivating and heartwarming tale that will transport you back to the days of your childhood... with a steadily increasing voltage!

Daily Mail

A deliciously unsettling read

Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

Lovely

Patrick Gale

A sharp eye and keen wit are brought to bear on the secrets and lies of a small rural community—secrets and lies that may prove deadly.

It's 1972, and ten-year-old Deborah is living a ten-year-old life: butterscotch angel delight, Raleigh chopper bikes, Clunk Click, Crackajack, and Jackanory, Layla, and the Bee Gees, flares, and ponchos.

But new girl Sarah-Jayne breezes into school, pretty as a picture and full of gossip and speculation, as well as unlikely but thrilling stories about levitation. The other girls are dazzled, but Deborah is wary and keeps her distance.

That same week, eighteen-year-old brickie Sonny turns up on her doorstep with a stray tortoise and begins an unlikely friendship with her young widowed mum.

That's bad enough, Deborah thinks, but then Sonny starts work on a site opposite the school, and Sarah-Jayne decides he's the latest love of her life.

Nothing escapes Sarah-Jayne, and Deborah fears what she'll make of her mum.

It's good to be different, her mum often says; but not, Deborah knows, too different.

So, Deborah changes tactics, keeping her friends close and her enemy closer, even stepping up for some of Sarah-Jayne's levitation sessions.

Then she's invited to Sarah-Jayne's lovely house, where she meets her charming family and encounters Sarah-Jayne's big sister's fiance, Max, which is when she senses that all isn't quite as it seems.

Readers say:

Suzannah Dunn is a master at dissecting the relationships that are closer than just friends, those love affairs we have with our oldest friends, the attachments we formed before.

Weight: 474g
Dimension: 162 x 242 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781408707234